Abstract
The goal of our project is to develop a non-invasive means to monitor the physiological status of plants. Spectral image acquisition is a powerful analytical approach for determining chemically distinct species in heterogeneous materials. It was found by Callis and Brukner that the combination of a continuously tunable monochromatic light with a thermoelectric-cooled CCD detector offered the best approach. In the in vivo spectra of leaf, researches has been focused on interpreting the visible spectra in terms of the profile of various types of chlorophyll-protein complexes and relating these to selected aspects of plant pathology and physiology. A computer interfaced imaging spectrometer employing a CCD detector was constructed. It can record the transmitted spectra of up to 31,680 positions for each sample. The instrument was used to study in vivo spectra of sugar cane and barley leaves. The light harvesting complex proteins were then `interpreted from the spectra and were shown graphically. Excellent results were also obtained when we measured the relative respiration rate of plant roots. A pH sensitive dye Resazurin was used to show the pH changes around a soybean root. The spectral images changing as a function of time were recorded and the relative respiration rate of any position of the root could be determined.
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